Something to Protect
by Sissytobitch10seconds
Summary: It seems like the Baudelaires have finally found refuge at Prufrock Prep seeing as Count Olaf is too afraid to return back to his old school and the new principal somewhat resembles their Uncle Monty... But happiness is temporary and something awful is bound to happen to them.
1. Chapter One: New School

The hall before them was dark and empty, none of the students or lights to be seen as they were marched forward. Sunny's hand was so small compared to his, but he did notice that it had gotten bigger since the fire. Violet was on the other side of their younger sister, supporting her so that she could toddle with them. "This is one of the most prestigious schools that we could find that would take Orphans like you," Mr. Poe said, his hands folded around his napkin as he walked with the Baudelaires.

A bubble of anger flooded into the middle child. He glared up at the banker, though you wouldn't have been able to see the look due to how dark it was. "They told me that you should find your uniforms in the dorm where you'll be staying. Just go and meet the Principal first." Mr. Poe gave them a tight smile before he turned and walked back down the dark hallway, coughing into his handkerchief.

Violet looked over at her brother, her dark hair spilled over her shoulder and into her eyes. "Do you think we'll be safe here?" she asked, her voice weak and quiet with fear.

"I highly doubt it," Klaus muttered, much to both of his sister's distaste.

"I think we might be okay for a little while," Violet said, trying to be optimistic. "Should we go meet the principal?"

"There's nothing else we could do," the teen said curtly. Violet brushed her hair out of her face before reaching down and scooping up the young toddler.

"Klaus is being kind of a grump, isn't he?" she whispered to the youngest of the siblings. Sunny only babbled something only she knew, laughing at her own antics. Violet hummed happily as she bounced the toddler on her hip. Klaus chose to ignore what his sister was saying as they walked to the brightly lit office space.

Violet knocked on the door three times before it swung open, stopping the rest of the knock. She and Klaus both took shocked steps back, expecting to see something horrible and awful like they had the rest of the times that a door had been opened. "Are you the Baudelaires?" a voice that sounded like sugar slowly being melted into honey asked. Before them was a young man with tanned skin, giving them the impression that he spent a lot of time outside. His hair was dark and curly, falling out into his eyes from where it was tucked into his fedora. He had smile lines around his warm, brown eyes.

Violet looked at her brother warily, "Yes," she answered, her lips pursed together.

"Great!" he said, opening the door further and ushering them in. The room was well lit by a small, simple light hanging down from the ceiling just over the desk. The aforementioned table was covered in papers and a random assortment of office supplies. There were a couple of plush chairs scattered around the room, four in front of the table and one behind. Klaus noted that a violin sat on the floor underneath one of the large open windows. "I know that the halls of this school seem a little foreboding, but you should be able to find comfort in the rooms here at Prufrock."

"We don't really know what we're going to be doing here, we were homeschooled before we lost our parents," Violet spoke quietly to the man, still unsure of whether or not they should trust him.

"I have a pair of triplets that are in the same situation as you, so they may be able to help you," the principal said, smiling at them warmly.

"A pair of triplets? As in six people?" Klaus asked, cocking his head to the side.

"No," the older man said as if realizing what he had just said. "Two triplets, their brother passed away, but they were born three not two so they're still triplets."

"Oh," Klaus said, nodding as he took in the information.

"Speaking of the Quagmires, do you think that you are up for a tour around the school or do you want to just go back to the dorms?" the principal asked.

"I think we would be okay with a tour. It would be nice to stretch our legs, after all, we were in the car for several hours," Violet answered, finally letting her guard down a little.

"Great! Does that go for all of you?" he asked, looking pointedly at Sunny who was slowly falling asleep on Violet's shoulder.

"Sunny might have to go to bed, but I think Klaus and I should be up for it," Violet said, smiling down at her younger sister.

"Give the young man a moment to speak for himself," the man chided.

Klaus smiled to himself as his sister got told off for speaking for the both of them, after all, he was fourteen, he was plenty old enough to speak for himself. "I would like to see the school," Klaus nodded, agreeing with his sister despite the fact that she had spoken for the both of them beforehand.

"I'll call down the tour guides then," the principal said with another pleasantly warm smile. He reached down to the phone, dialing a number quickly as he held the receiver up to his ear. "Olivia? Please send down Isadora and Duncan. Thank you so much."

"Sir," Klaus said as soon as the man hung up the phone. "Forgive if I'm being rude, but you haven't told us your name."

"Oh! I haven't, have I?" he laughed, the smile returning to his face. "I'm Mr. Beachwood. Do you have any more questions about the school?"

"Is there a place for our little sister to go?" Violet cut in before Klaus had a chance to speak.

"We do indeed. There's a daycare that can also be called a Kindergarten for kids her age. They'll teach her how to speak and walk and all sorts of other things. This school was so run down when the previous principal ran it, but now that I took over thing are so much better," he mused to himself. The door to the office swung open and two siblings around the age of fifteen stood next to each other. They were both wearing jeans and button up shirts, seemingly their lounging clothes due to the late hour of the night.

"You wanted to see us, Mr. Beachwood?" the one on the left, who happened to be female asked.

"Yes! I asked you if you would show around the new students earlier this week, didn't I? Well, these are them," Mr. Beachwood said pleasantly, gesturing to the Baudelaires. "Violet, Klaus, this is Isadora and Duncan Quagmire," he said, gesturing to the girl and then the boy in turn as he said their names.

"Nice to meet you," Violet said as she stood from her chair. Her eyes were locked on the girl- Isadora while Klaus stood and walked with his sister over to where the boy- Duncan was standing.

"Nice to meet you," Duncan said with a small blush on his pale complexion, sticking his hand out for Klaus to take. The younger male did so gratefully. His eyes were transfixed on the appearance of the other male. His dark brown hair was neatly groomed back, which showed that he at least somewhat cared about his appearance.

"And you," Isadora said, taking Violet's unoccupied hand. "Do you want to stop by the girl's dorms to drop off the sleeping one?"

"That would be lovely," she smiled.

"You can show her around, Isa," Duncan said, giving his sister a pointed look. "I'll show him around. That way you can drop off the baby and show her the girls dorms."

"Alright," the younger girl nodded, turning to Violet for a moment, "Would you be alright with that?"

"Yes, that would be lovely," the oldest girl smiled as she began to walk off with Isadora. Duncan looked down at Klaus and smiled awkwardly before they too walked out of the office and down the dimly lit hallways.


	2. Chapter Two: Classes and Flirting

p dir="ltr"Klaus sat in English, being almost eternally bored. His hand was threaded through his curly thick locks as he stared down at the paper in front of him. The tip of his pencil found its way into his mouth and then between his teeth as he rolled the soft eraser back and forth. It was still early in the morning, which meant that sleep was hanging heavily in his eyes. He had retired to bed late and had slept the hardest that he had in a long, long time./p  
p dir="ltr"The person behind him, who was also incidentally the boy that had shown his around last night fidgeted again, causing the metal of his seat to scrap against the wooden floor. Klaus looked back behind him for a moment, the boy behind him had glazed eyes as he stared out of the window. His hair fell over his forehead, cascading like a pool of melted chocolate./p  
p dir="ltr"Klaus felt his cheeks grow hot as he turned back around to his English book. His jaw clamped shut as he tried to drive the boy out of his mind and focus on the work that he had been assigned by the teacher. He looked back down to the blank paper as he tried to bring the words from where they were stuck at the back of his mind to focus./p  
p dir="ltr"The teacher cleared his throat at the front of the room before he called out across the near silent classroom, "This lesson is almost over students. You will have tomorrow to work on this. Your homework for tonight is to read the first three chapters of The Count of Monte Cristo and write a six-paragraph summary."/p  
p dir="ltr"Klaus blew some air out of his mouth as he began to put away his papers and pencils. The bell rang almost thirty seconds later, causing all of the students to stand and sprint out of the classroom into the hall that was quickly being flooded by students. The young Orphan looked up for a moment before he was forced to do a double-take. His cheeks turned a dark shade of red when he finally saw who was standing over him/p  
p dir="ltr""Do you need help finding your next class?" Duncan asked, a lazy, happy kind of smile taking over his features as he spoke. Klaus stood baffled for a moment as he got lost in the pleasant pools of green./p  
p dir="ltr""Umm, yeah that would be nice," he nodded, slinging his crappily made backpack over his shoulder./p  
p dir="ltr""Cool!" Duncan said, his eyes sparkling as he beamed. "Let's get going then. What's your next class?"/p  
p dir="ltr""Math," Klaus answered after he dug the schedule out of the deep pockets that his school pants possessed./p  
p dir="ltr""Really? With who?" Duncan asked again, moving closer so that he could pear at the messily folded piece of paper./p  
p dir="ltr""Mr. Petosa," Klaus read off of the paper, squinting his eyes to help them focus on the words as opposed to the boy next to him./p  
p dir="ltr""I have him too! What're the chances of us having two classes together?" Duncan laughed, which caused butterflies to erupt from his stomach. "Probably really high, there aren't that many teachers here."/p  
p dir="ltr""Oh?" Klaus asked, his interested in learning acting up. "You didn't mention that last night."/p  
p dir="ltr""Didn't I?" Duncan asked, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "Well, there are all twelve grades in the school and about 100 or so in grades 6-12. There are about twenty to thirty in all of the grades under that. So there are about four teachers for each subject for each grade and about two or three elementary teachers for each grade," the younger of the two rambled, explaining with his hands. He's doing only seemed to distract Klaus more as he noticed the way that the other boy seemed to brush against him every chance he got. Or maybe that was just Klaus noticing every time that Duncan accidentally touched him./p  
p dir="ltr"Regardless, every time that Duncan touched him, his skin felt like it had been charged with a hundred watt voltage, causing him to be full of giddy energy. "Does that make sense?" the younger asked./p  
p dir="ltr""Yeah," Klaus nodded, though he had only taken a good half of what Duncan had said. They walked through the hallways slowly, just like they had done the night before./p  
p dir="ltr""Do you like to read?" Duncan asked after a few minutes of silence./p  
p dir="ltr""Yeah. I do, a lot," Klaus nodded./p  
p dir="ltr""What do you like to read?" Duncan asked. "My sister Isadora likes to read poetry, but I prefer historical fiction."/p  
p dir="ltr""I read just about anything I can get my hands on. My parents had this huge library that they were constantly putting new books into," Klaus said, smiling fondly as he remembered his old home, despite the hurt that it brought his heart./p  
p dir="ltr""Oh yeah? What happened to it?" Duncan asked, turning to face the other boy./p  
p dir="ltr""It burned. In the same fire that killed my parents," Klaus said, pressing his lips together tightly./p  
p dir="ltr""Oh," Duncan's face fell, as did the sparkle in those pools of green he had for eyes. "My parents and my other triplet died in a fire too."/p  
p dir="ltr"Klaus remained silent for the remainder of the walk, knowing how much words of condolence could frustrate someone when they lost someone that close to them. They made it to their next few classes without much happening and yet it meant everything to Klaus as he got to know more and more about the other boy./p  
p dir="ltr"Like how he was trying to get a school newspaper, despite nothing ever happening at Prufrock. He had already written several articles, ranging from mysteries to the importance of queer representation./p  
p dir="ltr"When the younger man had said the word 'queer' Klaus felt his heart and stomach begin to do synchronized backflips. They were on their way to the cafeteria when the question that caused every word in the English dictionary to flood Klaus's mind. "What do you think about queer representation?"/p  
p dir="ltr"He coughed, forcing something that sounded mildly smart to come out of his mouth. "As someone who is part of the community, I think it's important that there is an accurate representation of what it's like to be queer," his cheeks grew increasingly red as he spoke. His gaze was focused on the ugly colored tile that covered the floor./p  
p dir="ltr""You're queer?" Duncan asked the smile he wore shone through in his words. "I am too. Where do you fall on the spectrum?"/p  
p dir="ltr""I'm gay," he blurted. He clenched the fabric of his pants as he resisted the urge to slap a hand over his mouth./p  
p dir="ltr""I'm pansexual," Duncan smiled. "Look there are our sisters! Let's go sit down!"/p  
p dir="ltr"Klaus rushed after the other man, his heart fluttering as he saw the other still smiling at him with a new kind of twinkle in his eyes./p  
p dir="ltr" style="text-align: center;"span style="text-decoration: line-through;"-/span/p  
p dir="ltr"Later that night, both boys sat in the dorms, books in their laps and shoulders brushing against one another as they flipped through pages. "Hey, this is making sense when I read, could you read it for me?" Duncan asked, pointing to one of the paragraphs./p  
p dir="ltr"Klaus took the book from the younger boy's hands squinting at the page through his expired glasses before he rattled off the paragraph, and the next seeing as Duncan hadn't stopped him yet. He continued to read until they had finished all three chapters of the assigned reading./p  
p dir="ltr""You have a really good voice. D'you know that?" Duncan murmured from where he had sunk down to on the couch./p  
p dir="ltr""Thank you," Klaus smiled behind the book. He was really starting to like the younger orphan./p 


	3. Chapter Three: Domestic Family

"I don't get this," Duncan groaned, rubbing his forehead as he glanced over the worksheet in front of him. "I don't get this, I don't get this," he repeated angrily.

"Do you need some help?" Klaus asked, resisting the urge to laugh as he walked over to his friend.

"Yes," Duncan grumbled, sitting back on the couch as the taller male sat down next to him.

"What class is this from?" he asked calmly as he picked up the paper from the coffee table. His eyes scanned over the instructions at the top of the page, he bit his lip slightly as he concentrated.

"English," Duncan sighed, moving so that he was sitting a little closer to his friend. "This is the part I don't get," he said, pointing to part of the middle of the page.

"Oh, this is simple," he said, a small smile on his face as he began to ramble. Duncan looked from the paper back to his friend, his heart began to go a mile a minute as he stared at the freckles that were splattered over his pale face. His eyes then quickly moved to the dark curls that pooled off of his head and framed his face in just the right way. The way that his eyes shone when he was talking about something that he enjoyed made butterflies erupted in his stomach.

"Understand?" Klaus asked, a small smile pulling at his lips as he turned back to Duncan.

"Uh, yeah," he nodded, swallowing harshly.

"You weren't listening, were you?" Klaus chuckled.

"No," he shook his head.

"At least you're honest," the older teenager shook his head teasingly.

"It's one of my best qualities," Duncan said proudly.

"I bet it is," Klaus smiled. "Now listen this time," he chastised. Duncan screwed up his face, trying his best to listen to what Klaus was talking about instead of staring at his face.

"Okay, I think it makes sense now," Duncan nodded, taking the paper back from his friend and placing it back down on the coffee table. He grabbed his pencil, allowing it to roll over his callous as he began to rapidly write.

"You're welcome," Klaus said making a mock tone of irritation take over his voice.

"Oh yeah," Duncan said, his cheeks turning a bright shade of red as he looked up at his friend. "Thanks, Klaus."

Klaus grinned, then saying sincerely, "You're welcome, Duncan."

"You really are a lifesaver," Duncan snorted as he fell back on the couch. His head flopped back to look at the other orphan, his eyes shimmered with affection as he spoke. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Probably fail your homework and tests," Klaus answered deadpanned. "Like you did the week I got the flu."

"I didn't fail that test," he scoffed, turning his head so that he was looking back over at the rest of the common room for the boy's dorm.

"You got a fifty percent," Klaus snorted, looking back over at the shorter man.

"That's not failing!" Duncan tried to reason.

"Yes, it is! Anything less than seventy percent is failing, Duncan."

"This is why I failed."

"If you just studied instead of wandered around and trying to find something to write an article about."

"That's like if I told you that you had to stop reading to do something!"

"But I can read to study," Klaus reasoned, knocking his shoulder with the other Orphan's.

"That is not what that metaphor means!" Duncan laughed, running a hand through his hair.

"I don't care, this is about you studying, not my reading."

"If you insist," Duncan shrugged as he slid down a small bit on the couch.

Before either of them had another chance to speak, another one of the students entered into the common room. He let out a loud groan, rolling his eyes, he turned to the other teenager that had followed behind him, loudly complaining. "The Gays are back at it. I really don't want to have to deal with their flirting."

"I know, it's disgusting," the second student grumbled, not caring in the slightest that the two subjects of their conversation were fully in hearing range.

Klaus frowned, his eyebrows furrowing as he listened to the other two teenage boys complain about them and their sexuality. Duncan felt anger bubble in his stomach as he listened to their exchange before he loudly called out, "Come on, Klaus. Violet and Isadora are waiting for us in the library."

"That's right," the other teenage boy nodded, standing up and rushing out of the common room with Duncan following closely behind him. "Do they really have to talk that loudly about my sexuality every time we're in the same room together?" Klaus grumbled as they stalked down the hall.

"Just ignore it, they don't know any better," Duncan shook his head. Klaus continued to grumble to himself for a moment before he sighed, walking a bit closer to his friend.

"Just because they were raised like that doesn't mean that I should have to put up with it," he reasoned.

"While that's true, I'm not sure there's much we can do about that," Duncan sighed, shrugging slightly.

"We could tell the principal," Klaus said sternly.

"Do you really think that would help anything?" the younger of the two asked. "I mean, while this principal is nicer than the last one, I'm not sure he could even do anything to make the super rich kids nice."

"Without losing funding, you mean," the taller teenager near snarled.

"I mean, that could be a part of it," Duncan said weakly, still trying to comfort his friend. "At least you, me, Isadora, and Violet all know that being Gay is okay."

"I suppose," Klaus said, a smirk tugging at his lips and a bemused tone sneaking into his voice.

"Not good enough!" Duncan called, poking his friend in the side.

"You're ridiculous," the taller teenager snorted.

"There's the library, where I highly suspect that Isadora and Violet actually are," he snorted.

"Knowing our sisters, it's highly likely," he snickered along with the other teenager. "Ms. Olivia might also be able to help us with our homophobic peer's issue."

"Yeah!" Duncan's eyes lit up at the other Orphan's idea. They both entered into the near silent library quickly.

"Mr. Boudelier, Mr. Quagmire," Olivia beamed, placing the book that she was reading down as she looked at the two students. "Your sisters are just over there."

"Thank you, Ms. Olivia," Klaus smiled as he tugged Duncan away from her desk and over to their sisters. He paused as he caught sight of Violet's hand tracing over Isadora's slowly. He smirked as he saw the look in his sister's eyes, something shiny and sparkly, something that he had never seen before.

"Violet," Klaus whispered into her ear, causing her to jump. Isadora brought her hand back and began to giggle madly. Duncan wrapped in her in a hug from behind, which caused her to jump just as the older girl had done before.

"You're so mean," she chastised, turning around and swatting at her brother's arm.

Violet just shook her head as her brother slid into the seat next to her. "What are you two up to?" Klaus asked as he stole one of the books that were sitting in front of him.

"Studying," Isadora answered quickly.

"What were you studying?" Duncan asked, a smirk on his face as he sat down next to his own sister.

"Uh," she stuttered, looking around at the books.

"Socializing," Violet quickly lied for the both of them.

"I didn't know that was an offered class," Klaus said, turning and smirking at his sister.

"Regardless, what are you two doing in here? I thought that you'd be reading in your common room," Violet said, quickly changing the subject.

"Some of the homophobic students came in and started leering at us," Duncan said, wrinkling his nose playfully.

"Homophobic students?" Olivia asked, turning and walking to them from where she had been stacking books.

"Yeah, they bug us every time they see us," Duncan nodded, despite the blood rushing out of his face and him waving for his friend to stop. "Loudly and insultingly."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Can you tell me who they are? I may be able to help," Olivia said, her eyebrows knitted together with concern.

"Okay," Duncan nodded, moving over to the librarian as he began to talk to her about his and Klaus's bullies.

"You didn't tell me about this," Violet whispered, leaning over to her brother.

"I didn't think I needed to," he shook his head.

"Bullshit," she swore, hitting his arm. "How long has this been happening?"

"Since we got here?" he asked, trying to think back to the time that they had found out about his and Duncan's sexualities.

"It's been happening for three months?" Violet asked, her voice growing more and more angry and worried by the moment.

"I guess," he shrugged, flipping open the book and toying with a few of the pages.

"I can't believe you didn't tell me," she hissed.

"I didn't want to worry you," he mumbled back, looking sheepish.

"We're siblings, we're supposed to worry each other," she reasoned, grabbing hold of his shoulder and bringing him into a hug.

"If you're sure," he reasoned.

"I am," she nodded.

Soon after they had finished talking, Duncan returned back to the table. "Ms. Olivia says that she should be able to help us."

"That's good," Isadora smiled, picking up her pen and tapping it on her lips.

"So Duncan told you?" Violet asked, her eyebrows raised.

"Of course," the younger Quagmire triplet nodded, "we're siblings after all."

"See, I told you it would have been alright," Violet said, her eyes narrowing at her brother.

"Fine," Klaus said, rolling his eyes. "You were right after all."

"At least you can recognize that," the older of the two said proudly. "Now, I'm going to go pick up Sunny from daycare."

"Have fun with that," Klaus sighed, running a hand through his hair and leaning over the book on the table.

"Isa," Duncan whined, looking over to her. "Can I have my journal back?"

"Oh, yes, of course," she smiled, handing it back to her brother. The group of friends then quieted down, allowing the three of them to return to reading and writing.


End file.
